Developer Call for Bitcoin Software Conference at MIT

Bitcoin Core developers Gavin Andresen, Cory Fields and Wladimir van der Laan expanded on their larger vision for development of the open-source bitcoin project at an event held yesterday by their new employer, MIT Media Lab.
Elsewhere, Andresen proposed that having multiple versions of the bitcoin software – such as Bitcoin Core and his proposal Bitcoin XT (though it was not named directly) – would guard against scenarios where issues with one implementation could take down the entire network.
Andresen indicated that he believes Bitcoin Core needs to do more to incentivize miners who process transactions to upgrade software by packaging releases with this group in mind.
Fields suggested pressure could come if Bitcoin Core developers sought to enable software users to make transactions “entirely anonymous” through their work on the protocol.
The developers suggested that such a scenario is likely to play out at the upcoming Scaling Bitcoin conference in Hong Kong.